Hatcher inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “They have their duties.”
“Of course they do!” Simon bellowed. “Wake up and smell the fucking coffee, Cager. People are a commodity. The only difference between you and me is I kept order amongst the ranks. I kept them all in their fucking place!”
“You are so wrong.” Hatcher shook his head at him. “They’re free to leave if they want.”
“And do what? Get eaten by some red-eyed Rager? That’s a fuckin’ hoot!” He took another swig from the bottle and shook his head. “You are so full of shit, man. Just you’ve got used to the smell.”
“Screw this, Hatch. Waste the asshole and let’s get gone.”
Hatcher nodded and brought the pistol up again. Simon held a finger up, stopping him while he took one more long pull from the bottle. He swayed slightly as he stood at the rear of the car.
Hatcher sighed as Simon held the bottle to his lips. He wasn’t expecting what came next.
“How’s this?” The technician held up the device and pressed a button.
Broussard stared at the device and shrugged. “Is it working?”
The tech smiled and pointed to the oscilloscope, a strong wave form flashing on the small screen. “According to this, I’d say so.”
Carol smiled and nudged Broussard. “We need to test it.”
The tech stiffened. “For that we’ll need to plug it into the amplifier and some kind of loudspeaker. You’ll want the tone to carry, right?”
“As far and wide as possible.” Broussard stared at the small plastic device. “This has the CD inside?”
The tech shook his head. “Nope. We have plenty of burnable discs but not enough players, so we switched to a USB drive.” He blew his breath out hard and slid the device closer. “It’s sealed so it should be weatherproof. We just need to rig up a longer lasting battery and figure out where we can scrounge the loudspeakers.”
Carol picked it up and inspected it. “If this thing works, then whoever is close to the broadcast should be safe from the Zeds. They’ll be docile.”
“That’s a lot of ‘ifs.’” The tech crossed his arms and gave her a knowing look. “Not that I don’t trust your data, I’d just rather not be the guy testing it.”
“Understood.” Broussard nodded to the yeoman. “Can you contact whomever and see if there is a team available that could…perhaps locate a loudspeaker system and test this unit? If it works, we can create many more.”
The yeoman shrugged. “We have special ops guys that live for danger, but…it will really be up to the skipper.”
“Let them know that we are prepared for field testing. If there’s anything that can be done, it should be.”
“Got it.”
The yeoman slipped out of the lab and Carol turned to the tech. “How many of these can you build?”
He shrugged. “At least a dozen more. Maybe if they go ashore and test it we can get the materials to create as many as you want.”
She turned to Broussard and smiled broadly. “This is going to work. I can feel it.”
He raised a brow at her. “You can?”
Her expression soured. “You know what I mean. It’s a figure of speech.” She huffed then stripped the latex gloves from her hands. “I need some fresh air.”
He watched her leave the lab and felt a desire to follow and try to placate her. Instead he saw the tech giving him a questioning look. “Is there something I should know?”
Broussard shook his head. “She caught a bug recently.” He sat down hard and ran a hand through his hair. “I fear that she was exposed to the solution we created.”
The tech gave him a concerned look. “If it’s a cure, then wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
Broussard nodded. “It is still untested. We can’t be certain that it works.”
The tech nodded knowingly. “And there’s no way to test if she was exposed to the cure or just caught something here on the ship?”
Broussard nodded. “I am waiting for the culture to grow large enough to test.”
The tech nodded knowingly. “Okay then…if you need me, you know how to reach me.” He handed Broussard the device and turned for the door. “Let me know how everything turns out.”
Broussard watched him leave and chewed at his inner cheek. If it was the cure, perhaps there was enough growth to test the DNA; he did engineer it to be very aggressive.
He walked to the incubator and pulled the door open. His eyes settled on the culture he had started and he felt his stomach drop
Simon staggered then swung the plastic whiskey bottle. He spat the mouthful of liquor at Hatcher as he reached for the pistol and spun into his body, pulling the weapon away and towards Roger.
With all of his strength he brought his elbow back and into Hatcher’s midsection, shoving the man off his feet. Simon continued his movement with a body roll and spun Hatcher around to act as a human shield.
He felt the man’s free arm try to grab him by the neck but a quick duck broke his grip and flung him up and over his shoulder then broke for the car.
Simon didn’t wait to see where the other man ended up as he jerked open the driver’s door and mashed the starter button. He threw the car into gear and floored the accelerator, screeching tires as he pulled away from the garage.
He distinctly heard the rear most box of booze fall out and hit the concrete, glass bottles shattering as he spun the car wide out of the driveway. The rear passenger window exploded inward as a shotgun blast struck the retreating vehicle. He cursed when he smelled the strong odor of alcohol.
“Fuckers! I broke a sweat collecting this shit!” He ignored the alarms screaming out inside the cabin and pressed the dashboard mounted button to close the rear hatch before he lost any more of his precious cargo.
As
